to say MIL cannot stay the night. this time

MIL is in many ways a lovely woman but is a complete pita to have staying over. cant do anything for herself, flaps, panics, makes little digs about the food, cleanliness etc.

I endure this every so often for the sake of my dd.

however, this i am putting my foot down and have said no. DH reckons i am being unreasonable.

context: DD 1st birthday party. lots of family. lots to do, will be quite tiring (on my side of the family we do big parties...)

That week on the monday afternoon I have my last exam for my masters degree so will have studied all weekend. Then 4 days work full time and party on sat afternoon i.e by sat night i will be crackered.

have naturally invited mil to party but have said she cant stay the night. she is not happy. neither is dh.

she lives about 80 miles away, would take normal person 1.5 hours to drive, it takes her about 2.5 hours.

I can see what you're saying but as you've invited her to the party won't she still be a PITA even if she doesn't stay over?

Not clear to me if you are really saving yourself any hassle here, just creating a new thing for her to stress about, plus creating tension between you and DH before a day when you will need to work together well as hosts etc.?

I think it might work better overall to go back on this and just ask DH to focus on looking after her so you can look after other guests - on the plus side your previous foot down approach should communicate to him how stressful you find MIL's overnight visits which he might not have previously realised?

Assign everyone post-party tidy up tasks. ie she can do the hoovering or washing up or whatever. Then ensure your dh has a plan for going out for the whole of Sunday morning with his mother and daughter, starting before you get out of bed, so you can have a lie in and have a coffee by yourself. Then you can be polite to her at lunchtime and wave her off with a smile straight after.

I would let her stay, but I would make your dh do all the work - getting bedding ready, cleaning the house to mil standards, buying in shopping, planning meals (then if she has a sly dig about food or cleanliness, you can say 'well dh was in charge of x, must be the way he was brought up <sigh>'). And like Romanarama says, get him to give you a lie in on Sunday morning and take you all out for Sunday dinner so you're not cooking.

Totally agree with stayfrosty. If your DH wants her to stay overnight, it's his job to look after her.

I did this with my DP - my MIL is lovely but DP would drive us both to visit her, ask her for food, switch on the telly and leave me to make small talk with her. I said from now on, I'm happy to visit but I'm not keeping the ball in the air myself.

He was fine with it and totally understood.

On a wider note, I'd say that asking her to visit but not stay the night will probably kick off more issue than just having her overnight would. If you don't have her very often I'd say just grin and bear it.

and yes i would love dh to do all the work but that just wont happen because he gets so annoyed with her and goes of to sort out the shed or something inevitably i end up doing it all... as well as enduring the "oh dont worry about me i am sure my darling daughter in law can do it, you have been working all week poor son" comments because for some reason the fact i work full time as well doesnt compute in her brain.

if i ask her to do anthing she's the sort of person who will ask so many questions about it its not really worth it ifywim. leave at lunchtime? lol. she'll stay till at least 8 and expect sunday supper (after a cooked breakfast and roast dinner).

ok so perhaps i need to grin and bear it. i can get DH to book me into the priory for the week after when i have had the nervous breakdown. does anyone know are there any special offers at the mo?

no he's brill with dd, (same maturity level). my mother/sister will look after MIL at party - who in anycase will be obssessed with her daughter and other grandchild who is of course far cleverer, prettier etc than any devil child of mine will be!!

YANBU !!! Your MIL sounds like mine. It wouldn't surprise me if my MIL couldn't even wipe her own arse, she's that incapable of actually doing anything !! She would also expect me to run around after her while she just sits there doing sweet FA.

Put your foot down, stick to your guns, put up with the frosty atmosphere that may linger between you & MIL on Saturday, but look forward to the fact that when the party's over, you can put your feet up and enjoy doing nothing because she'll be back at home